1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a system for presenting information using prestored speech.
2. Description of the Related Art
Radio and television traffic advisories have been used for many years to alert drivers to various traffic incidents. One shortcoming of these traffic reports are that they must share air time with other content and, therefore, do not always provide information when needed or do not provide some information at all due to air time constraints. For example, a radio station may broadcast traffic news every half hour; however, a driver may have a need for traffic information at a time between broadcasts. Furthermore, the traffic report provided by traditional television and radio broadcasters utilize a human being to announce the traffic. It would be more efficient and economical to provide traffic information in an automated fashion, without the use of human announcers. Another problem with many traffic reports is that are not updated often enough.
One solution that has been implemented includes collecting traffic data in real time, categorizing the data and entering that data into a database. Traffic information from the database can then be sent to a laptop, transmitted to a pager, made available on the Internet, or provided to a television broadcaster. In one example, the traffic information is sent to a computer that creates a television output that includes map and displays icons indicating the location of the traffic incidents (e.g. delays, backups, accidents, etc.). Text can be scrolled across the screen that describes each of the incidents. The traffic maps can be enhanced with the use of surveillance videos of the incident areas. Typically, the audio track played along with the traffic maps will include music, prestored announcements explaining the Geographic area being reported and/or a human announcer. Although this system provides continuous traffic information, the real time traffic information is presented visually.
The presentation of traffic information will be more effective if the presentation included audio descriptions of the traffic incidents. Some people process audio information better than visual information. Additionally, many people watching morning television programs have the television playing in the background; therefore, they can hear the television but they cannot always see the television. Furthermore, the above described system cannot be used on radio broadcasts. Finally, it would be advantageous if a user can contact a traffic information service by telephone and receive automated traffic information for the user's local area.
Audio has been used in the past for many applications. In many cases the audio is ineffective because it is hard to understand or it is not pleasing to the human ear. For example, synthesizing speech based on text tends to sound unnatural and be prone to errors. Furthermore, simply playing various phrases without taking into account the structure of normal human speech may be difficult to follow. Any system using audio should be flexible enough to arrange the speech to sound similar enough to human speech such that it is pleasing to the ear. In particular, people are accustomed to hearing high quality speech from television. Furthermore, it may be desirable, in some cases, to provide the speech in complete sentences. To date, there is no system that provides automated traffic information using speech that fulfills the above-described needs.